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Vegetable Gardening

neck pumpkin / long neck pumkin squash

16 years ago

I used to live in Pennsylvania and would make pumpkin pies from neck pumpkin. I now live in Louisiana and have tried to grow neck pumpkins here. My vines are great, my blooms are gorgeous, but no fruit has appeared. The blooms drop off and nothing appears. What is going on? This is my first time growing pumpkins and since this variety is not indigneous to this area, the local co-op nor the university ag department can tell me what's the problem. Can anyone shed any light? I've tried self pollenating, to no avail. Thanks

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Comments (5)

farmerdilla
16 years ago
I don't know how that one does, But I have to grow winter squash early or late. They will not set in July and August.
charlotte69
Original Author
16 years ago
I planted these in July. They started blooming in September. Do you think that there might be a chance that I might get fruit off of them yet? I've lots more seeds to experiment with!
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Wow...thanks for all the information! Jimster, I checked this morning and found holes in the main stem of the first plant that wilted and started dying. I clipped off the dead leaves yesterday and left a couple of new leaves and blooms that were forming. Strange that the rest of the plant died but on the end there are two open blooms and leaves this morning. The remaining stem does have holes but I didn't see any frass, mainly because the main stem looks to be rotting. Does rotting occur after the SVB does it's damage? Thank you, Violet for the the fact sheet; I've bookmarked it to keep for a reference, and thank you Farmerdilla and Darkcloud for your input and advice. I hadn't thought about how really well these plants have produced until I started to post and realized that I have harvested so many. I have given some away, as well as cooked some so it didn't seem as if I had harvested around 30. I did/do have blooms and baby squash and surely do want to keep them alive long enough for them to grow and harvest. Well...I'm off to rehab...er...physical rehab, that is. LOL! This gardening obsession has played a number on my L-5 disc! Ha! Blessings, Beverly
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denninmi
16 years ago
I would suspect it was probably due to heat stress -- you've had an extremely hot, record-breaking summer, I believe. A lot of plants will not set fruit well or at all under conditions of extreme heat -- peppers, eggplants, and tomatos definitely won't, and I suspect the same is true about squashes.
Hopefully, with the cooler weather, perhaps you'll still have time to get a squash or two.
Other possibilities include insufficient calcium in the soil, just like tomato blossom end rot, and excessive nitrogen.
MLcom
16 years ago
I grew this for the first time. Wow they are some big long necks growing. A few set in late sept and are still growing but dont think they will make it to frost. About one long neck per plant so far. They are about 10 plus lbs each. I grew mine in a bed that was heavy mulched with hay not sure if that helped. We did have a very dry summer and sept.

Not sure if I got some crosses cause have some thatlook like 20 lb size wih no necks. Sort of long and about 15 inches wide no necks.

ML
charlotte69
Original Author
16 years ago
I have met with success and now have nearly 12 pumpkins on one vine. Thank you for your comments and help.

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